Cleanliness is next to getting rid of a hangover.

[hackthis_archive]

serialkarma's birthday is fast approaching, and I have no present, so uh, yeah, I'll be working on that this week, definitely (even though she had the fucking nerve to go holiday!). A smart person would just start kicking out shit and hope that she likes some of it. Welcome to my approach.

Harry Potter
Harry/Neville
Imagine






Harry doesn't believe in happy endings -- they make him nervous.

He knows that happy endings only last until you close the book, and then the evil returns and people are murdered in their beds, and the happy ending becomes a nightmare. Harry's parents had a happy ending and look what happened to them.

Actually, Harry tries not to think about his parents too much these days just like he tries not to think about most things in the post-war world; he prefers to reserve what little sanity he has left for his lover. Except Harry really can't help all the thinking he does, because his brain never shuts up; Neville says this is a good thing. He says that’s one of the reasons he loves Harry -- because he’s smart. And there are a lot of things that Harry knows he could say about his supposed ’intelligence,’ but life has been hard enough for them, so he lets Neville keep his illusions.

There’s only enough room for one delusional person in a relationship at a time.


*


A lot of things make Harry nervous these days: creaking steps, the snap of branches outside his window when there's no wind, when the kettle takes too long to boil. Harry twitches when he sits still too long and wears grooves in the floorboards in the middle of the night. He's chronically jumpy when he's alone and even more so when he's with other people. Other people tend to attract attention, and Harry doesn't like attention. What Harry does like are the flowers and plants that Neville brings home from the nursery to make the flat more 'lived in.' What Harry loves is the way that Neville doesn't say that 'It'll get better with time.' Neville doesn't pretend, and Harry needs that, because all Harry does is pretend. He monopolises his imagination to keep reality out -- it’s something like having a life. As long as he tries hard enough Hermione is still alive, and Ron still has both of his eyes.

If Harry’s feeling magnanimous then he pretends that Remus didn't suddenly disappear one day without a word, and that people don't whisper that he joined Sirius wherever the black veil goes.


*


Sometimes when Harry closes his eyes, he pretends they're still at school.

He's got a shed load of homework to do, but he and Ron are much too busy playing wizarding chess to actually think about the eighteen inches of parchment that are due in Charms. The fire is warm against his shoulders as they sit in common room, and across the way, Dean and Seamus are arguing the merits of Irish football versus Dean's beloved West Ham.

Any minute now Hermione will come through the portrait and give them what for, for not starting in on their essays; and at night, after the lights have gone out and Ron's snoring away, Harry will slip from his bed and take the six steps across the way to where Neville is.

Harry will slip between the bed curtains and smirk at Neville's poor impression of someone sleeping. Neville's breathing will grow terribly erratic as Harry slips under the bedclothes with him, and in the morning Ron will pretend that they didn't forget to place a Silencing Charm around Neville's bed.

Ron has always been as good as pretending as Harry is.


*


Harry doesn't consider his life with Neville a happy ending; he just considers it his life full stop. He can't imagine what he would've done if anything had happened to Neville during the war; he had enough problems when Neville went out on reconnaissance without him. He still feels guilty about the hole he blasted in the Burrow roof because Neville refused to stay at home where Harry thought he would be safe. Harry just wanted him to be protected though; he didn't think he was being 'a chauvinistic, small-mind, prophesised-my-arse git.'

Ron tried that number with Hermione, too, and wound up squeaking like a pig for three days. The one time she agreed to stay back, to shut up him, they came home to a hole in the ground.

Seamus and Neville had to take Ron's wand away to keep him from doing something stupid, and that night they all slept in a muggle barn.

No amount of pretending could change that.


*


Neville has a long, sensitive scar that runs across his shoulder blades and curls under his left arm, and no amount of magicking has ever been able to make it go away.

Sometimes, at night, Harry lies beside him and traces it back and forth with the tips of his fingers. Sometimes he uses his tongue. The feeling of Neville shuddering under his hands reminds Harry what he fought for in the first place.

When Harry's inside Neville, he thinks that if the world ended right now it would be for the best, because Harry never has to imagine that Neville loves him; and he knows that if there's were such thing as a happy ending, this would be as close as he could get.


-end-

Comments

[girlandetc.livejournal.com]

this is so brilliant. you've managed to capture this.. desperate evasion of reality, and make it understandable, and we feel bad for them without pitying them. i love the line, "no amount of pretending could change that," also. so sad.

[hackthis.livejournal.com]

What a lovely thing to say! I'm so pleased that you enjoyed this so much, thank you!

[girlandetc.livejournal.com]

thank YOU for writing it! i used to write but now i've got permanent writers block :( and its lovely to see brilliant writers like yourself producing this kind of work. thank you <3

[minitrog.livejournal.com]

Horribly, horribly sad. Brilliant. Ow.

[hackthis.livejournal.com]

I am all about the ow ;)

[lalejandra.livejournal.com]

Harry doesn't believe in happy endings -- they make him nervous.

Ahhh. Yes, me too.

after the lights have gone out and Ron's snoring away, Harry will slip from his bed and take the six steps across the way to where Neville is. Harry will slip between the bed curtains and smirk at Neville's poor impression of someone sleeping. Neville's breathing will grow terribly erratic as Harry slips under the bedclothes with him

Aw. This whole section made me catch my breath.

This was so sad. Poor mad Harry. Sigh.

[hackthis.livejournal.com]

Harry doesn't believe in happy endings -- they make him nervous.

Ahhh. Yes, me too.

Word, baby girl.

[kaydeefalls.livejournal.com]

Ow. Ow ow ow. Avoidance and understated angst and reality, and so well done.

[hackthis.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[ghost_lingering]

The thing I love most about this is that the end of the story isn't really the end. Because it's so easy to see how this turns out: at the moment, Harry has post-traumatic stress syndrome. But it won't always be that bad and, once he stops seeing Death Eaters in the shadows, once the remaining supporters of Voldemort are arrested, he'll begin to relax. Doors blowing shut in the cross breeze will stop sounding like wood walls splintering from bodies thrown against them. Flies buzzing in his ear will stop sounding like the murmurs he heard behind the veil. And, when he yells at Neville (for opening windows to let in the fresh air that blows the doors shut and the flies that buzz in his ear), it won’t be because he was reminded, again, of the war. It will be because Neville smirks and backs Harry against the sink and licks the line of his jaw and they stop being The-Boys-Who-Defeated-You-Know-Who and become just Harry and Neville, two blokes with their hands up each other’s shirts and their tongues in each other’s mouths. They will have been through hell, but, as a fly buzzes around their ears, it’ll start to become better and, soon, they won’t have to pretend at all.

And somehow that bit of feedback became a drabblish type thing. Ahh, sorry. Anyhow, besides the obviously brillian Harry pov, I loved the small stuff: how Remus went after Sirius, which (while hard on Harry) is really rather sweet. And I loved Ron and the parallels between Harry and Neville, and Ron and Hermione.

Thank you very much for posting.

[hackthis.livejournal.com]

I smell an optimist in the ranks! *laughs* Anything is certainly possible, and that was a lovely drabble.

[riverflame.livejournal.com]

oh, wow. Brilliant, I love your Harry - his character as it could be is amazing, if not perfect. I love how he and Neville are, together. How Harry imagines, how he's jumpy - again, just amazing. And so very sad.

[hackthis.livejournal.com]

I'm pleased you enjoyed this, thanks!

[dorrie6.livejournal.com]

My brain is gone and I can't feedback, but I wrote a little something here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/dorrie6/262158.html). Hopefully that will do for now.

[hackthis.livejournal.com]

I'm so pleased you liked it, sweetie, thank you for all your kind words. I appreciate them greatly.

[birds-sing.livejournal.com]

*sigh* Wow. What a fantastic story. So sad. And I do have a soft spot for sadness.

[hackthis.livejournal.com]

I have a huge soft spot for the angsty sadness, too. It's good for the soul. (They just don't tell you that in school).

[birds-sing.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree!

[jukeboxromeo.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. That was just so beautifully sad. Especially this bit:

He knows that happy endings only last until you close the book, and then the evil returns and people are murdered in their beds, and the happy ending becomes a nightmare. Harry's parents had a happy ending and look what happened to them.

It just hurts, but it's that good kind of hurt.

[hackthis.livejournal.com]

A little pain is good for the soul; it promotes growth!

[serialkarma.livejournal.com]

I am really liking this whole quantity thing you've got going with regard to my birthday and fics, for the record.*g*

If Harry’s feeling magnanimous then he pretends that Remus didn't suddenly disappear one day without a word, and that people don't whisper that he joined Sirius wherever the black veil goes.

Okay, this gave me chills. Way to evoke tragedy and creepiness in just a few words. damn.

As long as he tries hard enough Hermione is still alive, and Ron still has both of his eyes.

And, um, here I spazzed and was all, "OMG Ron = Xander!!!!" which kind of makes sense if you think about it. Huh.

Sometimes, at night, Harry lies beside him and traces it back and forth with the tips of his fingers. Sometimes he uses his tongue. The feeling of Neville shuddering under his hands reminds Harry what he fought for in the first place.

oooh, such a pretty picture.

This whole story hurt in that really good way.